Portable Micro-Reactor- Producing Hydrogen From Fossil Fuels
For everyday use, we are trying to find an easier option for power supply. Students at Chemical Engineering Department in Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey have developed a micro-reactor that uses fossil fuels for power generation. These students have developed reactors that can convert propane and butane present in fossil fuels to pure hydrogen as fuel foe cell batteries.
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Besides that hydrogen is a good target explosive and that is why U.S Army is so much interested in technology that is reliable and safe in use. But there are some side-effects too. The  disadvantages of general methods by which hydrogen is produced:
The reactor is made up of the micro fabrication techniques. This technology is now-a-days used in plasma TV screen. This has made production of plasma at the normal room temperature.
The team has made a successful achievement by producing hydrogen from methanol. Our daily fossil fuels consist of butane , Methane iso-propane molecules which on certain chemical reactions give hydrogen molecules. Firstly the methanol is gasified and it is put in hot nitrogen gas for suspension. Then the mixture is flown through 25 µm pipeline to the micro-reactor. In micro-reactor it gets react with the plasma already present. This causes thermal decomposition and breaking of methanol into hydrogen.
The Stevens team is now trying to find out several compositions possible to produce from different fuels. This will give soldiers to convert everyday liquid fuels like butane into hydrogen as portable fuel at their military camps , at any place whenever needed just to charge cell batteries.
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Besides that hydrogen is a good target explosive and that is why U.S Army is so much interested in technology that is reliable and safe in use. But there are some side-effects too. The  disadvantages of general methods by which hydrogen is produced:
- Scientifically the process of production of hydrogen is quite tedious. Theses methods uses high temperature and vacuum conditions just to produce the plasma. This plasma is needed for chemical reaction to produce hydrogen molecule.
- Again the main difficulty in such method is of storage of hydrogen that is once produced. Hydrogen basically is highly volatile. It makes it expensive for transportation.
The reactor is made up of the micro fabrication techniques. This technology is now-a-days used in plasma TV screen. This has made production of plasma at the normal room temperature.
The team has made a successful achievement by producing hydrogen from methanol. Our daily fossil fuels consist of butane , Methane iso-propane molecules which on certain chemical reactions give hydrogen molecules. Firstly the methanol is gasified and it is put in hot nitrogen gas for suspension. Then the mixture is flown through 25 µm pipeline to the micro-reactor. In micro-reactor it gets react with the plasma already present. This causes thermal decomposition and breaking of methanol into hydrogen.
The Stevens team is now trying to find out several compositions possible to produce from different fuels. This will give soldiers to convert everyday liquid fuels like butane into hydrogen as portable fuel at their military camps , at any place whenever needed just to charge cell batteries.
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